History is a way by which men and women come to understand who they are as human beings.
It is the mission of the History Department to impart to students a solid knowledge
of the past and to develop in them the ways of thinking they will need to make sense
of broad patterns of change in different civilizations and cultures.

The History Department prepares students to think critically about the world they
live in and their place in it. We want them to pick up a newspaper and have some context
for understanding the importance of the stories therein. We want them to make decisions
in their careers and lives with an understanding of the moral and political issues
that are at stake in those decisions. We believe that this is not merely a function
of exercising a skill called "critical thinking," but that it comes from, and actually
requires, a specific knowledge of the past that has led to the events they are reading
about the moral and political quandaries they are faced with. Thus the history department
considers its main duty to be to give students the 'historical literacy" they need
in order to think critically about the world in which they live.